A Year in Reflection…
A year in reflection and big growth plans ahead for Engage.
First and foremost, I want to take this moment to wish all our client families a big happy and healthy new year. There are lots of things happening; it’s a really exciting time for us at Engage and I’m looking forward to sharing it all with you in due course.
2025 will go down as a bit of a crazy year from a personal, business and general perspective. In this blog I’ll cover off why and weave Engage and our year as a company into the post.
In terms of the markets, which can drive a lot of client sentiment, we had a strong 2024 and this continued with a good start in 2025. Then President Trump unleashed his tariff plans which caused a sharp selloff in financial markets as concerns set in. Once there was more clarity about the level of tariffs and how countries and companies might deal with these there was a strong recovery into year end. December saw a small pull back, but clients should be up approx. double digits across the board. We’ll report the actual figures in your upcoming annual review. For those of us with invested capital, life is always easier when the markets do well.
There has been some speculation about bubbles and companies being overvalued. My personal opinion (which means little) is that, whilst I can definitely see some areas of speculation ( i.e. some AI companies not yet profitable are enjoying huge valuations), there is a broadening of returns for the wider market.
In recent years, people have focused on the so-called Magnificent 7 (Google, Microsoft, Meta, Netflix, Apple, Amazon and Nvidia). This year only two of those companies beat the S&P500 average. This shows a broadening of gains across the other 493 companies.
The US has also lagged behind the rest of the world in terms of its gains this year, which is an interesting change in market dynamics we’ve not seen for a while.
As always, we will monitor how this shakes out but we are, and always have been, globally diverse. This diversification is a staple of our investment philosophy.
The only guarantee is that markets will continue to go up and down in the short term and in the long term they will grow due to human innovation and progress. The great companies of the world will continue to make products that people buy, to generate profits and growth for shareholders.
We focus on the financial plans behind the markets to keep the families we look after on the right path and to build/sustain/grow wealth. One of the key points for financial planning is that we are trying to beat inflation and the erosion of your purchasing power across multi decades. A couple reaching 60 today has a 50% chance that one of them will live to at least 90. We need to prepare income generation that’s sustainable for that long a period.
What £100k bought 30 years ago vs what it buys today is very different and this is why we invest. To maintain and beat long term inflation.
On to Engage.
I’m really proud and grateful to our team for their hard work and dedication, which has made it a stellar year for us. Client referrals were strong and new business exceeded expectations. It feels like we’re really well placed to grow and take the business to the next level to continue to support clients’ through times of increasing financial complexity.
The achievements of 2025 mean we are reinvesting more into the business for 2026. We want to hire an in-house paraplanner, which means our turnaround time for detailed regulated advice will be quicker. We want to hire an administrator so that each client knows who to go to for valuations or when they’ve been logged out of their system etc. We want our advisers to continue their learning journey and to focus on seeing clients and helping them live their best life possible, whatever that means to them.
We have put in place a 5-year growth plan to really build out our business. I’ll keep the specific goals in-house, but it’s safe to say that we need to build on the foundations we have put in place thus far. As we grow, we are evolving from being a small, niche business to a medium sized Chartered Financial Planning firm. Our growth means we need more systems and processes in place for both clients, staff and potential hires. We are reviewing our service proposition to provide more visibility and value for clients throughout the year.
This is a really interesting time for us and I’m more enthused than ever to develop our team, our business and lead us into the next stage.
Toby and Emily have capacity to look after more client families, and we will focus on their client growth over 2026 and beyond. We will be reviewing our client portal and our use of AI in 2026 to see how we can be more efficient and provide better client outcomes. We remain on the lookout for acquisition opportunities where feasible. We are in conversations with a few interested parties currently and will keep you updated if and when we complete on any more purchases.
We were delighted to be named in the Citywire top 100 advice firms for the 6th year running. Toby and I were Top Rated advisers on VouchedFor and Emily is now the lead advise for a number of client families as she continues to develop into an excellent adviser. Her goal is to complete her Chartered Financial Planner exams by the end of 2026.
I want to finish by touching on the wave of negativity in the UK at the moment. It’s true that things can feel bleak; whether it’s politics, rising taxes, the cost of living, or social tensions, there’s no shortage of gloomy headlines.
Yet despite all that, almost every real‑life interaction I have with people is overwhelmingly positive. Social media, by design, amplifies negativity because that’s what keeps us scrolling, but it’s a distorted picture of the world. Most people are fundamentally decent, and it’s surprisingly easy to forget that when we’re glued to our screens.
All we can do is continue being good people and try to make a difference in the small corner of the world we actually touch. So, when everything online feels a bit grim, step away for a moment and reconnect with real humans; it’s a helpful reminder that the world isn’t nearly as dark as the timeline makes it seem.
All the best for 2026.
Sam